Levenshulme High Street Community Economic Development (CED) Plan

Oh we’re not just a bunch of (very) pretty faces, here at Levy Market towers, you know – sometimes we like to get SERIOUS about the business of high streets and our role within our high street…so, prepare to be SERIOUS for a bit:

In 2015 we were very pleased to announce that we had been chosen to receive a funding and support package via Co-operatives UK as part of the Community Economic Development (CED) programme – a new initiative designed for local community groups and organisations who want to take a lead in shaping their economies for the benefit of local communities.

We had a lot of meetings with the key people who have a stake in our high street and worked with the New Economics Foundation (NEF) to devise a research project designed to answer some critical questions about the retail environment in Levenshulme – what was working, what wasn’t working and why? We appointed an independent researcher, who carried out an exhaustive study using muchos muchos data and a frankly IMPRESSIVE amount of interviews with local traders and landlords and she delivered a report in February this year. Since then we have been beavering away behind the scenes, digesting the report (it’s a biggie!), meeting with the high street stakeholders, our councillors and Manchester City Council officers and have devised a PLAN for how the community and the stakeholders and the council and ANYONE ELSE WHO CARES can start to make our high street great again.

The plan is some ideas – based on what we thought was important from the report and how we thought the community could start to deal with some of the problems – it’s is NOT the answers, as determined by Levenshulme Market or anyone else – and in many ways it may even raise more questions that solutions but this is where YOU come in. We want the residents of Levenshulme and the people who want a great high street in Levy to take back the high street! So we are asking you to do two important things:

Read the report and give us your thoughts and ideas – you can do that by commenting below, emailing us or commenting on Facebook or Twitter.

Bring your amazing ideas and energy to help us develop ours to an event that we will be hosting in May this year – we don’t have a date confirmed yet so it’s probably best that you just CLEAR YOUR DIARY FOR THE WHOLE MONTH (or…keep an eye out here for more announcements). More details to come very soon but we promise this will be an interactive, inspiring and – above all – effective event to help us start making some real changes.